The End is the Beginning
by Metarie
Summary: Martha doesn't think badly of him when she leaves, or of herself. It makes too much sense, and to deny that this had long been on its way would be foolish. Martha/Tom, Martha/Mickey. One-shot.


_**Disclaimer: None of it is mine.**_

_**A/N: Look, a Doctor Who fic. I'm branching out!**_

* * *

Martha doesn't think badly of him when she leaves, or of herself. It makes too much sense, and to deny that this had long been on its way would be foolish.

The night she returns from that incident with the New Dalek Empire, they make love, grateful they are both still alive and breathing. It isn't until afterwards that Martha senses something is different.

"What is it, love?" she asks quietly, but he just puts his arm around her and holds her close for the last time in a long time.

-

Tom is a brave man, and he'd put up with a lot from her. In the beginning it worked - he had long hours to put in at the hospital, and she traveled with UNIT. Then he went to Africa. They checked in with each other, and from far away, wherever she is, Martha's mantra is always _absence makes the heart grow fonder._ It is a reminder to herself. A reminder that it is true.

Except then, one day, she notices that it isn't.

-

They only fight a little.

"You never tell me what you're doing anymore," he says over dinner on one rare night, during an even rarer week when they are both home.

"I don't like you to worry," she answers. "You know you would."

"I worry anyway," he grumbles. "I worry about you getting hurt."

"Sweetheart, you don't have to worry about me," she says, putting her hand on his.

"I know," he says.

-

After a while, after months of fewer phone calls, after nights spent together but still somehow apart, after long hours laying awake wondering what was best and what was right, Martha decides.

"Tom," she says, one day at breakfast. "We should talk."

"It's over, isn't it?" he says, barely hesitating. He doesn't even sound sad. "I've felt like it was."

"I think so," she says, feeling like she was watching this scene from outside her body. She thinks it should hurt more than this.

"I think that's best," he says, and he continues eating his breakfast.

She sits watching him, listening to the heater run. It's always cold in their flat in January, but right now it feels colder.

"I'll be out by the end of the week," she says eventually. She takes off her ring and sets it on the table, then she gets up and rinses out her cereal bowl.

-

So now, she feels free. She sometimes gets little pangs of loneliness, but she puts it down to not being used to being on her own. It's been a while, really. First she'd had the Doctor - sort of, then there was Tom... it's just different, now, that's all.

Martha is happier, or at least content. It feels good to know she's not constantly ignoring someone, not giving someone important the affection he deserves. Tom will find someone else, and she will fight aliens. Everything will be fine.

Sometimes she laments the fact that finding someone she has anything in common with anymore will be next to impossible, but those moments pass without significant incident.

-

A few months later, she hears from Tish that Tom's been out with someone.

"Saw him out and about the other night," she says over the phone, while Martha is outside an old abandoned warehouse on a UNIT stakeout. They're waiting for a couple of lost Sycorax to make an appearance. "Some tall skinny blonde woman. They were having a grand old time down at the pub the two of you used to love."

"I can't really talk," said Martha, and she does a double take as she notices from the corner of her eye a dark figure dashing into the old building, wielding a large gun of some kind. "I'll call you back."

"Well all right then," says Tish, a bit put off. "Just thought you'd like to know, is all, I mean, it figures, doesn't it?"

"Yes. It figures. I'll call you tomorrow, Tish." Martha hangs up.

She and a small team of soldiers go in after the figure, and she's expecting it to be a meddling idiot, some alien enthusiast acting on rumors (it happens - often, in fact, there're more and more of them every day), but then it wasn't. Not exactly, anyway.

"Got 'em," the man says, leaning his gun on his shoulder and looking pleased with himself. The two Sycorax are lying unconscious at his feet. "They'll be fine, obviously, didn't stick 'em with anything that'd really hurt. Might have a headache after, but that's it."

"Mickey Smith," says Martha, a little dumbfounded. She motions for the rest of her team to lower their weapons.

"The one and only," he says, grinning at her.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"UNIT's job, apparently."

Martha wants to be annoyed, but the fact that he waltzed in here and made the evening much simpler for her and her coworkers is preventing such feelings.

"Well, thanks," she says, because nothing else is coming to mind.

"No problem. Any time."

"Where the hell have you been, anyway?" she asks suddenly, curiously. The last time she'd seen him had been right after the Doctor had dropped them off. She, Mickey and Jack had gone to the pub for drinks, and while she hadn't gotten drunk enough to do anything stupid, there had definitely been flirting. Of course, there was always flirting when Jack Harkness was even marginally involved, but it wasn't all just him.

"Oh, here and there," Mickey says, waving his hand. "Nowhere and everywhere. Out and about. You busy tonight?"

The question startles her because it comes out of nowhere, and it takes her a moment to realize it's even been asked. But when she does, she smiles and shrugs. "Not anymore, it seems," she says, motioning to the unmoving aliens, which are now being attended to by UNIT lackeys.

"Fancy a drink?"

_Oh, why the hell not,_ she thinks. "Don't mind if I do," she says.

* * *

_**Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! :)**_


End file.
